A lifelong practitioner of the art of defusing financial crises, he has spent his career hopping from one fiasco to the next—in Mexico, Asia, twice in Brazil—for the Treasury and the IMF. Which is why some argue that he should have seen one coming in the mid-aughts, when he took charge as president of the […]

When was the last time you took a second look at your student loans? If you’re like most borrowers, you probably try hard not to think about them. After all, dwelling on your debt isn’t going to make it go away any faster. Or is it?

As you may have heard, Obama is apparently close to nominating Jack Lew for Treasury Secretary, giving Tim Geithner his late Christmas wish: a one-way ticket outta there. And while he’s previously said to have no interest in writing about his time in Washington (and at the NY Fed before that), friends o’ TG claim that his plan for the next year or so involve “a round of ‘detox’ and writing a book.” Obviously we’re still very far off from anything concrete but publishers will undoubtedly be banging down his door in no time and when they do, it might be nice to at least have a title to wet their palates. While Geithner packs his bags, let’s do him a solid and come up with some options. The year spent sunning himself off the coast of Ko Samui (or puttering around Larchmont, or taking a job with the least amount of responsibility possible, whatever the detox entails) will presumably do wonders to take the edge of the last 48 months but if he’s still in an angsty phase by the time he sits down to bang out his story, perhaps one of the following would work?

Earlier today, it was reported that Timothy P. Geithner has informed people that he “plans to leave the administration by the end of January, even if President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans haven’t reached an agreement to raise the debt ceiling.” Will this actually happen? Those unfamiliar with the Treasury Secretary’s attempts to leave his post in the past will say yes. He’s leaving, ship-shape. Those who’ve watched TPG try and fail to bust out of Washington for the last nineteen months, however, know better. More than likely, he’s not going anywhere and it’s not because deep down inside he doesn’t actually want to go home but because his bosses won’t let him. Witness, if you will, a small sampling of examples in which his requests have been denied, either directly (via someone laughing in his face) or indirectly (by giving those who’ve applied to replace him the wrong directions to their interview):

President Barack Obama, newly re- elected, now confronts two questions that he has been avoiding for more than a year: Who will replace Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and when…The timing of Geithner’s replacement depends on whether the White House can reach an agreement with the lame duck Congress on a deficit reduction plan to avoid […]

As you may have heard, because you’ve read the reports reports or picked up on the Morse code message he’s blinked out during every appearance on CNBC or he threw himself on the hood of your car and screamed “Get me outta here” the last time you drove up to the Treasury building, Tim Geithner is ready to leave Washington. Has been for some time, in fact, but previous requests to go home were alldenied. Now that his bosses are supposedly going to allow him to leave in the event Obama is reelected, many are wondering what will be next for TG. Despite having spent the majority of his career in public service and giving the impression that he has no desire to work for Wall Street, Bloomberg is thinking that with the albatross that his his unsellable Larchmont house around his neck, a family, and college tuition to pay, Geithner may not have a choice.

The years in public service — particularly engaging in diplomacy with domestic and foreign partners — left a deep impression on Geithner, infusing him with a sense of purpose that he might find lacking on Wall Street…Yet the years in civil servitude have also left Geithner in need of a better salary. Geithner is one of the least wealthy men to head the Treasury Department in recent years. He took more than a 50 percent pay cut to assume the job. His $199,700 salary is higher than the $174,000 earned by most members of Congress. His pay has been increased by $8,400 in three years, yet his net worth pales next to such predecessors as Hank Paulson and Bob Rubin. With two mortgages and two college-age children, the lure of private-sector money could be hard to resist. BlackRock’s Fink, for instance, received $23.8 million in salary and stock in 2011, making him No. 1 in the Finance 50, Bloomberg Markets’ annual ranking of the best-paid CEOs at the largest U.S. financial companies.

Other ideas Bloomberg has for ways Geithner can make ends meet that he’s already said no to include writing a memoir. He “publicly ruled out” doing so in September, but they’re pretty sure he’ll reconsider after the guy he hired to patch up his roof tells him the whole thing needs to be replaced.

Who should replace Ben S. Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve when his term ends in January 2014? If anyone cared to ask us, we’d say no one: we like our Fed Chairman soft-spoken, bearded, and just as comfortable in dad jeans as they are in their bespoke Jos. A. Bank suits. But nobody asked and, according to Andrew Ross Sorkin, Bernanke has told “close friends” that regardless of whether or not Obama wins a second term, he’s ready to move on. Apparently qualified successors are few and far between and while Larry Summers is said to be “at the top of the list,” the fact that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner may finally be granted freedom from his own personal Guantanamo Bay and will also necessitate a replacement who will have to work closely with the new Fed Chair poses some staffing issues, on account of the perception that Summers is somewhat difficult to work with.

…[Summers is] a serious economist who knows his numbers and has a worldview that is similar to the president’s. He would be expected to continue the loose money policy of Mr. Bernanke. But one of the knocks against Mr. Summers is that he has a reputation for not playing well with others. He has had his own run-ins with the president. And if you consider the Treasury secretary and Federal Reserve chairman as a tag team, you would have to be confident that whomever you pick for Treasury secretary would get along well with Mr. Summers.

So he called some former students assholes. So he’ll cut a bitch for getting between him and his steady stream of Diet Coke. So he chooses to sleep through co-workers’ particularly boring presentations. So he makes female colleagues feel like “pieces of meat.” So he shoots people unequivocal death stares that say, “I could have you killed and no one would find out” for the mere suggestion he might want to consider wearing socks. Is all that to say he’s not an otherwise affable guy who’d make a fine workmate and prized addition to an office softball team?

“President Barack Obama’s senior advisers are confident Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner will remain in his job even though he hasn’t made his intentions public, an administration official said. Geithner met recently with Vice President Joe Biden and laid out his reasons for wanting to leave the post. Biden outlined why it was vital that […]

“My survey of Wall Street executives [shows] Jack Lew in the running for this job…They think that he’s the most likely guy to be Treasury Secretary at least that’s according to the people I talked to: major Wall Street CEO’s and executive suite players that I deal with…The other guy that’s out there is Larry […]

Barofsky met with Geithner in the fall of 2009 to express his concern that the Treasury Department had made TARP unpopular by not being fully forthcoming about how TARP was being used, including not forcing banks disclose how they were spending TARP funds. Geithner got dramatic, [Barofksy writes in his new book, Bailout: An Inside […]

“You know what I would like to see?” Spitzer asked the crowd. “I’d like to see a petition with a hundred million signatures, submitted to the White House tomorrow morning, saying, ‘Give us a treasury secretary who understands reform.’ Bring Paul Volcker in. Bring in Joe Stiglitz. Bring in Paul Krugman. Bring in Robert Reich…Spitzer, […]

“Lloyd is never going to be treasury secretary.”– Money and Power author William Cohan, who apparently isn’t aware that the gig of Treasury Secretary of the US will be so far beneath Blankfein’s next pivot. **Gary Cohn will take the Ritter part

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Apr 29, 2011 at 3:32 PM

SAC

Mary Jo White was the top federal prosecutor in New York City during Bill Bratton’s first run as the Big Apple’s top cop, and she learned a few lessons from his “broken windows” theory: Clean a place up a little, and throw the fucking book at the street urchins who are messing things up with […]